Physics

Five years ago, physicists from Harvard and MIT achieved a world first by forcing a pair of photons to interact with one another in ways that shouldn’t seem possible. What do you do when you’ve achieved such a lofty goal? You try to add a third photon, of course. With all eyes on light

Five years ago, physicists from Harvard and MIT achieved a world first by forcing a pair of photons to interact with one another in ways that shouldn’t seem possible. What do you do when you’ve achieved such a lofty goal? You try to add a third photon, of course. With all eyes on light

Oganesson (Og) is the heaviest chemical element in the periodic table, but its properties have proved difficult to measure since it was first synthesised in 2002. Now an advanced computer simulation has filled in some of the gaps, and it turns out the element is even weirder than many expected. At the atomic level,

At the very centre of the image above is something incredible – a single, positively-charged strontium atom, suspended in motion by electric fields. Not only is this an incredibly rare sight, it’s also difficult to wrap your head around the fact that this tiny point of blue light is a building block of matter.

Atomic clocks are capable of the most precise physical measurements humanity can make, but because they’re so complex, they’ve been restricted to laboratory use – until now. For the first time, scientists have developed a portable version, and used it to take measurements of gravity outside a laboratory setting. The technology involved in atomic

Part of what makes graphene so fantastically useful is its amazing thinness – it’s just one atom thick. Scientists have now found hundreds of other materials that are equally thin, providing a wide selection of new materials with perhaps as much potential as graphene. The team analysed data in open resources including the Crystallography

Electrons boosted to near light-speed velocities have been shaken to a virtual crawl after being made to collide with what one physicist describes as ‘a sheet of light’. Sure, that sheet is an ultra-intense laser briefly brighter than a quadrillion suns … but that just makes it even cooler. Not to mention the fact

Scientists have developed a new type of “super wood” that is more than 10 times stronger and tougher than normal wood – and this innovation could potentially become a natural and inexpensive substitute for steel and other materials. Key to the new wood’s superpowers is a special chemical treatment followed by a heated compression

There’s a strange pattern in our Solar System – if you look at the orbits of the first seven planets, each one gets increasingly distant from the Sun in a predictable and quantifiable regularity. This coincidence was noticed in the 18th century and further explored by astronomers Johann Titius and Johann Bode. It was named

Science can be a little intimidating. Whether it’s the latest research in quantum mechanics or organic chemistry, sometimes science can make your head spin. But you don’t have to go through eight years of school or work in a high-tech lab to do science. There are plenty of experiments you can do at home.

Researchers have come up with a way we could harvest energy from Earth by turning excess infrared radiation and waste heat into electricity we can use. The concept involves the strange physics of quantum tunnelling, and key to the idea is a specially designed antenna that can detect waste or infrared heat as high-frequency electromagnetic waves,

At first, it looks like a jumble of random things cluttering a desk – little bits of wood, a couple fidget spinners, some coins, a pencil. Then, a hand reaches over and drops a tiny blue marble onto a slope, and the next thing you know both the marble and yourself are in for an

Scientists think they’ve finally discovered a totally new type of water ice called superionic water, water that is simultaneously a solid and a liquid, potentially teaching us much more about this most versatile of substances and leading to the development of new materials. The idea of superionic water has actually been around for several

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is the particle accelerator that just keeps on giving, and recent experiments at the site suggest we’ve got the first evidence for a mysterious subatomic quasiparticle that, until now, was only a hypothesis. Quasiparticles aren’t technically particles, but they act like them in some respects, and the newly recorded

One of the oldest and most fundamental questions in biochemistry is why the 20 amino acids that support life are all needed, when the original core of 13 would do – and quantum chemistry might have just provided us with the answer. According to new research, it’s the extra chemical reactivity of the newer

One of the oldest and most fundamental questions in biochemistry is why the 20 amino acids that support life are all needed, when the original core of 13 would do – and quantum chemistry might have just provided us with the answer. According to new research, it’s the extra chemical reactivity of the newer

One of the more well-known rules in physics is that light can only ever go one speed, so long as nothing stands in its way. But new research has found there could be an interesting exception to this rule, where the mixing of light waves could bring them to a complete standstill. The discovery

One of the more well-known rules in physics is that light can only ever go one speed, so long as nothing stands in its way. But new research has found there could be an interesting exception to this rule, where the mixing of light waves could bring them to a complete standstill. The discovery

Lasers powerful enough to tear the fabric of matter itself are being developed in a special laboratory in China, potentially giving scientists the chance to create and study experimental environments unlike anything we have on Earth. The stats behind these lasers are impressive: One has already reached a peak of 5.3 million billion watts

Lasers powerful enough to tear the fabric of matter itself are being developed in a special laboratory in China, potentially giving scientists the chance to create and study experimental environments unlike anything we have on Earth. The stats behind these lasers are impressive: One has already reached a peak of 5.3 million billion watts

Holograms are pretty cool, sure. But they’re still just two-dimensional projections that hover in the air, and as soon as you step to the side, the magic disappears, revealing how flat the thing really is. But now researchers from Brigham Young University have demonstrated they can create fully three-dimensional projections of moving images – and

Holograms are pretty cool, sure. But they’re still just two-dimensional projections that hover in the air, and as soon as you step to the side, the magic disappears, revealing how flat the thing really is. But now researchers from Brigham Young University have demonstrated they can create fully three-dimensional projections of moving images – and

For those working in the field of advanced artificial intelligence, getting a computer to simulate brain activity is a gargantuan task, but it may be easier to manage if the hardware is designed more like brain hardware to start with. This emerging field is called neuromorphic computing. And now engineers at MIT may have

For those working in the field of advanced artificial intelligence, getting a computer to simulate brain activity is a gargantuan task, but it may be easier to manage if the hardware is designed more like brain hardware to start with. This emerging field is called neuromorphic computing. And now engineers at MIT may have

An idea for an experiment that could unite the stubborn fields of quantum mechanics and general relativity has been given new life by two groups of physicists from the UK. The fact that quantum theory doesn’t play well with gravity is a massive stumbling block in physics, one that has long eluded some of the

A search through a mountain of data from the Large Hadron Collider for particles called magnetic monopoles has once again come up empty handed. That doesn’t yet completely rule out the possibility of these hypothetical objects. But it does tell us that if they exist, they might be extraordinarily massive particles that are beyond our

Physicists have created what they say is the first device that’s capable of generating particles that behave as if they have negative mass. The device generates a strange particle that’s half-light/half-matter, and as if that isn’t cool enough, it could also be the foundation for a new kind of laser that could operate on far

Scientists have reached a new low in the cooling of liquid water, hitting -45 degrees Celsius (-49 degrees Fahrenheit). That’s way below the usual freezing point, and shows we still have a lot to learn about the physics of this plentiful substance. In two separate experiments, water was supercooled right down to 230 Kelvin

Physicists have observed some weird atomic collision problems as particles failed to bounce off each other in the way science predicts they should. But with some new work that helps to explain what’s going on, they may just have found the key to understand some very complex particle physics. A new study explains how

If you feel like having one of your fundamental beliefs thrown out the window, try this on for size – under the right conditions, you can boil water until it freezes solid. Yep, as the Cody’s Lab video above demonstrates, after a few minutes of boiling, water starts to form solid ice crystals, and is actually cold

We’re used to dealing with three physical dimensions and one extra dimension of time as we move through the Universe, but two teams of scientists have shown that a fourth spatial dimension could reach beyond the limits of up and down, left and right, and forwards and backwards. As you might expect given this

A brand new type of lens called a metalens has just passed a major hurdle. A metalens is a flat surface that use nanostructures to focus light, and it could change optics forever by replacing the traditional bulky, curved lenses we know. Up until now these ultra-compact lenses have had enormous potential, but they’ve

The German physicist Albert Einstein needed complex equations to describe his theory of relativity, but 18-year-old Hillary Diane Andales of the Philippines does just fine with a pick-up truck, a few cell phones, and Usain Bolt. Andales is the winner of the 2017 Breakthrough Junior Challenge, an annual competition that calls on teenagers across the

It’s well established that nuclear fusion – the reaction that powers our Sun – could be the key to unlocking clean, limitless energy here on Earth. But one of the biggest challenges of modern science is how to harness the fusion reaction so that it produces more energy than it consumes. And a new paper claims to

Scientists have long been intrigued by the physics near absolute zero – the temperature 0° Kelvin, or -273.15°C, where particles reach the lowest possible amount of movement – ever since this limit was theorised. Yet reaching absolute zero has been called impossible: as you continue to remove heat from a gas to cool it, the work

While we all take for granted the fact that time’s arrow forever points towards the future, physicists have always had trouble showing why this is necessarily the case. A mix of chloroform and acetone might seem like an odd place to hunt for clues, but researchers have used just such a combination to create conditions

One of the underlying principles of quantum theory is that quantum objects can exist as waves or particles. But, they do not exist as either until they are measured, making it seemingly unachievable to identify or track quantum objects when they’re not being observed. But recently, physicists faced this issue and proved that it

Some wonder-materials you hear from once, and that’s it. But not graphene. A month barely goes by these days without us hearing about a new use for this amazing carbon allotrope. Here’s one more potential use for this overachiever of the molecular world – bullet catcher. One day armed forces might protect themselves with

In 2000, the Clay Mathematics Institute announced the Millennium Prize problems. These were a collection of seven of the most important maths problems that remain unsolved. Reflecting the importance of the problems, the Institute offered a $1 million prize to anyone who could provide a rigorous, peer-reviewed solution to any of the problems. While

If you want to stick something on your fridge, like really get it stuck on hard there, you might want to talk to the scientists at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory. They’ve just build the most powerful superconducting magnet ever, shattering the world record. Its magnetic field clocks in at 32 tesla in

The US has conducted more nuclear weapons tests than any other nation in history. The official count of 1,054 tests includes 210 atmospheric nuclear tests between 1945 and 1962 – with cameras capturing every one. This week, a team at the federal Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) has released 62 of these atmospheric nuclear

Achieving nuclear fusion without needing radioactive fuel or producing radioactive waste is now “within reach” thanks to a new laser-driven technique, according to researchers. The type of fusion we’re talking about is hydrogen-boron fusion, which produces no neutrons and therefore no radioactivity in its primary reaction. The downside, and part of what’s made it

It’s well established that nuclear fusion – the reaction that powers our Sun – could be the key to unlocking clean, limitless energy here on Earth. But one of the biggest challenges of modern science is how to harness the fusion reaction so that it produces more energy than it consumes. And a new paper claims to

Researchers at the University of Illinois have announced an exciting finding – the discovery of a new form of matter: excitonium. This material is made up of a kind of boson, a composite particle that could allow the matter to act as a superfluid, superconductor, or even as an insulating electronic crystal. Physics professor

Scientists just took a big step towards the goal of quantum computers, and even a quantum internet to connect them, after successfully using photons to transfer quantum information between a cold atomic gas and a solid crystal. Passing data between these two “nodes” or types of storage shows that it should be possible to

Researchers at MIT have invented a temporary “tattoo” made from genetically programmed living cells. Their prototype looks like a stick-on patch with a pattern in the shape of a tree. It’s divided into sections printed with a slurry containing live bacteria that fluoresce when they come into contact with particular compounds. When the skin under

It’s the simplest trick in the pantry – pour sugar into a jar, run out of space, then tap the jar on a table to pack it down so you can fit in the rest of the bag. ‘Compaction dynamics’, as this trick is called, has lots of uses in industrial settings, and physicists have

An exotic kind of particle so mysterious that it was suspected to be impossible has finally been identified by physicists – and not just once, but twice. Two new theoretical predictions of an elusive form of matter called tetraquarks provide the firmest evidence yet that these strange particles really do exist after all, setting the